the president then met with harry reid and talked to john boehner by phone and we have heard harry reid is working on legislation, perhaps mitch mcconnell's involved in this, as well. so when we look at this, david, who's pulling the strings now? who will sit down and make the deal happen? >> there's eyes on mitch mcconnell. he's been influential in past debt negotiations. a year and a half ago in sort of coming up with something that his fellow republicans would like and i think the question is, though, as meredith said, john boehner doesn't seem to have full control of his caucus and looking at the house, is boehner comfortable with moving something with a majority of democratic support and some republican support to put it over the threshold. looks like there's a lot of shifting going on about who to blame going over the cliff and probably not a good sign because they're setting up who to blame and might be an inkling to come. >> the votes not on the side of boehner last week, meredith, if there's a bipartisan deal out of the senate, will those who were not for john boehner's plan "b